Among the rules governing reader submissions to these pages, the policy involving consumer praise and complaints about private businesses is often the most difficult to explain to people.

Of course, it doesn’t help that the people submitting such items often already are angry about a business — so you can imagine their reactions when I tell them their submissions won’t be published if it details the personal experience(s) that fueled them to write.

Still, a few submissions and phone calls in the wake of last week’s news reports about Charter Communications and the city of St. Cloud highlight the need to revisit this issue.

If you missed the news reports, city leaders are upset because Charter’s leaders have not communicated in a timely manner with the city about extending Charter’s franchise agreement. The City Council on Monday passed a 60-day extension of that agreement and decided to send a letter to Charter expressing its frustrations. Charter responded in a Times report the next day, saying it will address concerns in negotiations.

By Thursday, at least a couple of letters (and phone calls) had come my way praising the city’s actions followed by words like “now you know how I feel” supplanted with complaints about everything from Charter’s customer service agents to its pricing structures and refund policies.

I’ve let those folks know they are most certainly welcome to opine about the issues the city is having with Charter. However, in keeping with our policy about consumer praise/complaints about a private business, we will not include details about their personal experiences.

Why?

The biggest reason is the role of the Opinion page and website. It’s here to foster community discussion about current events, public policies and issues that affect the broader community.

The policies, procedures, services and even prices a specific private business (or any organization) provides to individual customers do not meet that standard.

Understandably, though, some readers believe the city’s battle with Charter falls in a gray area. Their view is the city — like them — is simply trying to negotiate the best deal. So if the Times allows opinions about that, it also should allow opinions about their individual bills.

Sorry, but the former clearly meets our standards of public policies and issues that affect the broader community. After all, it’s the city’s taxpayers who fund the building and maintaining of the public right of way that Charter wants to use to deliver its services.

An individual’s bills and experiences stemming from dealing with any business is a private matter with no direct connection to public policies or impact on the broader community.

Does that mean dissatisfied customers don’t have a way to make their opinions known? Not at all. As I have noted to many callers the past 15 years, contact the Better Business Bureau or — my personal favorite — find another provider of that same service and give them your business.

Of course, when it comes to Charter, that suggestion is met with “I can’t. Charter is a monopoly.”

Without passing judgment on Charter, please know it is not a monopoly.

There are other options for phone, Internet and television access. Plus, any similar company can make the same play for St. Cloud’s right of way that Charter is making. It’s just that has not happened in more than a decade — which certainly isn’t Charter’s fault.

This is the opinion of Randy Krebs, St. Cloud Times Opinion Page editor. He can be reached at 255-8762 and rkrebs@stcloudtimes.com. Follow him on Twitter @sctimesopinion.